Spent some time in New Zealand earlier this year - in both north and south islands. As we travelled around Auckland I noticed quite a few people walking around barefoot. In department stores, grocery stores and pharmacies and one restaurant - no problem at all. I also noticed high school students playing games and sports barefoot on school fields. Never saw any young kids barefoot in school playgrounds we passed by in the cities - they all wore uniforms and school hats - but definitely had shoes or sneakers on.

Among the native people - barefoot seemed more prevalent.

Quite a lot of barefoot folks in Tauranga - but we were at a watersports activity area - so no surprise there. A few in Wellington and more in Queenstown.

Overall a lot more folks barefoot than I am used to seeing but perhaps a bit less than I expected.

A fantastic place to visit by the way and the friendliness of the people is amazing. Put it on your bucket list folks - you'll not regret it.

Longboard, Barefoot TJ, Ronnie B you changed my life serioulsy, i'm planning to move to New Zealand now thanks to you people, you helped me a lot,

thanks to you i'll move to new zealand,

thank you very much

and maybe some people think i'm crazy but i'm not, i'm only a person who doesn't like his own country and don't like shoes because of the research i did, i don't personally have a foot fetichism
i say all this because can be seen as weird a person who move thousands of miles just to don't have to wear shoes lol

and thanks sid but i think hwaii are less barefooters there but i dont know